Spice Box (24 page)

The girls all stared at Janice, but her sweet smile disarmed many of them at the start. At Miss Spicer they looked coldly, wondering that she smiled. It was not like her to smile. What had come over her? All the morning it was so, though she did her best, and into the afternoon.

Just before closing time, Martha was stooping inside a counter to arrange some goods that had been stacked there for her to mark, and as she worked she was down out of sight for a time, so that all the girls at the counters round about thought that she had gone home. There was a lull just then in the business of the day and a girl from the mail-order shoe department came over for some stockings to match a piece of goods, and while she waited for her needs to be supplied she idly talked.

“I see old Spice Box is back. Crabby as ever, I suppose. I declare, I think you girls ought to have gone to the manager and made a protest at her coming back. I can’t see what the management sees in her. Why, even the customers hate her! Did she start in bad?”

“Oh, so-so,” answered the blond girl with a shrug. She was a girl who was always getting into trouble with customers. “She hasn’t done much yet, but I believe she’s jealous of that pretty pink-cheeked thing they’ve got for an assistant for her. She looks at her as if she could eat her.”

“I shouldn’t wonder if they are going to put that new assistant into the place pretty soon and old Spice Box is just here to show her the ropes,” put in another girl who had just come up. “You needn’t worry. Spice Box won’t stay long. Not if she’s got a fortune like they say she has. What would anybody want to stay in the store for if they didn’t have to?”

“Did she get a fortune?” said the first girl. “Aw, I don’t believe it. Who would leave a fortune to an old cranky woman like that? I shouldn’t wonder if that was all bluff. Or maybe it didn’t pan out. I’ve heard of such things. Anyhow, she isn’t going to try any more of her sarcasm on me. I won’t stand for it! I’ll report her, even if I lose my job for it!”

Then up spoke another girl, frail, pale, and sad looking.

“Girls, I think you’re real mean to talk that way about Miss Spicer. She came and shook hands and smiled at every one of us. She said she was glad to get back and she hoped we’d have a nice time together. And she was just lovely to me at noon. She noticed I had a headache, and she took me into her own office and made me lie down on the couch. And that Miss Whitmore bathed my head with lavender water and gave me some smelling salts and got me a hot cup of tea. She was just dear. She talked to me about Miss Spicer. She says she lives with her and they have beautiful times together. She says they have a piano and a cat and she is buying an automobile. And I’m going to go home with them pretty soon and stay over Sunday. What do you think of that?”

“Aw, baloney! What’s she cozying up to you for?” asked the blond girl. “I wouldn’t trust anything she did as far as my nose. She wouldn’t invite anybody to see her unless she wanted something out of her, I’ll bet. You better watch out. If I was you, I wouldn’t go.”

“Oh, shut up, Jennie, you’re jealous,” said another girl. “You’d go in a minute if you ever got invited, if for nothing else but out of curiosity. I know
you.
But you
won’t
be, so don’t worry.”

The floorwalker came hurrying anxiously past them just then, looking askance at the girls, because they were not supposed to be there at that time, and they scattered quickly, without another word. But Martha, when she thought she would not be noticed, marked the last lot, closed the boxes, rose from her cramped position, and walked quietly to her office. As she passed them, busy with some papers she was carrying, the girls looked in horror at one another.

“Do you suppose she heard us?” they whispered. “If she did, she’ll get back at us somehow, you see if she doesn’t.”

The bugle for closing sounded and a moment later Miss Spicer stepped out of her office and came walking down the aisle, laughing and talking with one of the cash boys as if they had a joke together. What could it all mean?

“For the love of Mike, girls, what can have come over her? She’s been smiling all day!” whispered one girl. “And now she seems to have a case on Bobbie!”

“I’ll bet she’s going to be married to some rich old guy,” said the blond girl. “Wouldn’t that be something?”

“Nothing like that,” said another. “She wouldn’t come back and work in the store if she was marrying a rich guy, would she?”

It did not take many days to make the people in the store realize that there was a wholly different Miss Spicer at the head of the underwear department, but it did take many weary, lazy, self-sufficient people before the young women under her began to understand that while she still meant business and must be obeyed in any command she issued, yet she could and would be tender and sympathetic and loving to them all at times. Not until a number of them had been to her pretty home and breathed its loving atmosphere did they quite understand. And even then they came back puzzled and thoughtful, and wondered what had done it.

But gradually, one by one and two by two, they capitulated to her, till it got to be quite the thing for the girls, and the cash boys, to seek Miss Spicer in any time of need and to know that she would be a rock of strength and always a sympathetic friend.

Her little world grew gradually larger and larger, as one by one she added new people to her list of friends, who later shared the hospitality of the rejuvenated brick house. Almost every day somebody needed a ride or some advice and rode home with Martha. And so in time many people from the store came to know and love Ronald’s friends and many of the neighbors in the street. And Ernestine, of course, was beloved by all of them.

Janice got along beautifully at the store, both with her work and with her co-laborers. Her smiling face and charming ways were part of the great attraction to go and see Martha Spicer. And always at the pleasant little dinners and teas, Janice acted the part of the young hostess, like a daughter of the house.

“How they love you at the store!” said Janice to Martha one evening as they went up to their rooms for the night. “They are so fortunate to have had you and known you all these years.”

“Love me?” said Martha with a smothered sigh. “My dear, they used to hate me. Yes, I know, for I have heard them say so!”

“How
could
they!” said Janice, aghast. “You are so good, good, good and dear!” She flung her arms about Martha’s neck and covered her face with soft little kisses.

“I don’t see how you could possibly have been lonely, as I was. People everywhere must love you wherever you go.”

“Oh my dear, you don’t know. You don’t understand. Do you know what they all used to call me at the store? Spice Box. I have heard them many a time. Old Spice Box.”

Janice was quiet for a minute or two, her arms still around Martha’s neck.

“Oh, but a spice box is a lovely thing,” she said with a smile.

“Don’t you know it is? It’s used to make everything taste just right. Without it, things would be flat. Why, I remember how lovely my mother’s spice box used to smell when I was a little girl! Besides, Martha dear, those people didn’t know you the way I do. You’ve just been an angel to me!”

“You are a dear child,” Martha said chokingly, “and I thank God for sending you to me!”

T
hose were the days of delight to Martha and Janice. Every morning they got up some new idea about how to fix something for the house, and every evening they developed some new corner or window or bookcase for the admiring inspection of the workmen, who were getting tremendously interested in this house they had been making over.

The work was going forward rapidly, and if one might judge from the number of people who dropped in from the street to see what in the world Miss Spicer could be doing to her perfectly good, respectable old house, Mr. Roberts must be gaining name and fame. One and another householder would come the second time and ask the architect his price for taking down a partition or putting in a window, which showed that the new neighbor in the district had started something that wouldn’t stop at her own house. It began to appear that almost every family on the block, and a few on the next one, were contemplating alterations. Those who had no alleys and couldn’t hope to have bay windows would have to be content with taking down partitions.

There were a few who looked on such innovations as unnecessary, almost unrighteous, and clung to traditions and old customs with a stolid zeal. They declared Miss Spicer might better have rented out a room or two in these wartimes if she had so much room to spare, rather than to make a great big room with no hall and only a little vestibule to keep out the cold in winter. Entering into the parlor right like that wasn’t decent, they declared. But Martha went on her serene, happy way and never knew.

Martha and Janice went about the store almost every noon now and browsed around among curtains and furniture, coming home at night with something pleasant. And then among the artworks Martha came upon the little head of exquisite marble, a representation of Joan of Arc, the one she had admired for so long. She recognized that its beauty had had some effect upon her. She could see a bit of art like that would somehow bear a message of sorts to anyone who looked at it, and when she brought Janice to see it and found that she too felt its power, she bought it. Shades of the ancestors, how they would have raved! But she had long ago ceased to listen to them. This was an acquisition that would do something beautiful to her home, and to all who came to it, and she felt she must have it. It represented all the things that had been starved out of her young life. It was a little expensive, of course, but so was everything that had real intrinsic value, and she felt she could not afford to pass this by. In fact, she was beginning to see that it did something to both herself and Janice to be in that store and feel that they were a part of it.

The morning came at last when Mr. Roberts announced that the living room and dining room, even down to the catches on the windows and the fasteners on the delightful corner china closets, were complete, and they might take possession of it.

They had watched the painters and paper hangers in their slow, tedious process of finishing, and now they were all eagerness to move in. For indeed the kitchen and laundry were over-congested with things new and old, and it was growing more and more difficult to get any meals at all.

It happened that Ronald and his gang, as he called them, came strolling in as if by appointment, probably having received a tip from Mr. Roberts, and presented themselves for work. They took their orders from Ronald and started a procession of furniture out of the kitchen and laundry and into the grand new apartment that the old house had become. Ronald got his directions in a low tone from Martha if he wasn’t just sure where something went. It was remarkable how often he knew without asking.

Janice and Martha had been at work every night rubbing and polishing the fine old mahogany, and now the boys brought them carefully in and set them in place as if they were sacred articles. The sideboard, its brass handles shining brightly, the table and chairs, the high chest of drawers, the couch, the rockers, the round center table, and the old secretary with its high glass doors and its desk that would draw out. These all appeared with new dignity and beauty in the pleasant setting of the new rooms. There was some new furniture, upholstered in fine bronze leather like billows of air, a couch and chairs the color of the woodwork.

The walls were pale cream like faint sunshine, and there were curtains of silky woven sunshine. The three helpers came downstairs with their arms full of books and paused in amazement. They couldn’t tell what unearthly atmosphere had suddenly fallen into that place to make it different from anything they had ever seen before. There were pictures being hung on the walls, one of the ocean upon which they gazed and gazed. There were bronze green velour curtains hung from the arch where the partition between dining room and parlor had been, and there were cushions to fit the seats around the fireplace to match the curtains. There were built-in bookcases, and Martha was bringing beautifully bound books and placing them. Every touch was telling now. Ronald pointed to the rugs and showed the boys where to place them. Two big ferns and some scarlet geraniums were in the bay windows. At last Ronald, with a great awe in his face, and cautious handling, brought forth Martha’s one great extravagance, the little head of Joan of Arc.

Carefully, he undid the wrappings until the exquisite bit of art stood forth in all its beauty, and the group of helpers and the men who had helped to build all stood around and looked with reverence as if in the presence of something holy. Perhaps it was the feeling the artist had put upon the stone and who recognized the purity of the consecrated girl. It was just as Martha had hoped. That little statue with its lovely profile had power to arrest attention and uplift the thoughts of even the lowliest, for as they looked, those men felt this was a living, breathing mortal before them—calling them to higher purposes and nobler aims. The soft tints of the amber and deep brown in the coloring of the marble, the strange trick the artist had of chiseling life into the pupils of the eyes, deepened the impression.

But nothing could keep Ronald, the irrepressible, still very long. He was the first one to come to himself.

“Some looker!” he drawled. “Who was she? Say, Janice, she looks like you!”

That broke the silence, and the company began to move about and try to express their delight, but ever as they moved they kept turning back to look at the girl in marble and to recapture that fleeting impression that she was a real, living being wishing to speak to them all about something most important.

“Who is she?” It was Pace who asked the question again, timidly. He could not get away from feeling she was somebody real.

“Joan of Arc? Oh, don’t you know her?” said Janice. “She’s a wonderful character in history. You must have studied about her in school.”

“Oh sure!” said Ronald confidently. “She was a dame that could ride horseback to beat the band, wasn’t she? And she had all kinds of nerve and got a lot of men to follow her, but couldn’t get enough, so she had to beat it. Or did she croak? I forget. Janice, why don’t you tell us the story about her?”